


Lonely Together

by fishwriter



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Carlos is a BAD boyfriend, Episode 70A, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, M/M, OOC Carlos, The Desert Otherworld
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-07 03:50:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17953073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishwriter/pseuds/fishwriter
Summary: A re-telling of episode 70A in which Carlos reflects on his regrets and mistakes as he tries to manage the chaos of Doug and Alisha while attempting to get the results of the entirety of the time in this desert otherworld.





	Lonely Together

**Author's Note:**

> "Carlos: It’s a sad letter. A letter about regrets, about mistakes.You know how sometimes you spend a lot of time with someone, and you think that the someone makes you happy, but then suddenly one day you realize… maybe you weren’t happy at all. Maybe both would be better off doing what you love in different places. Without each other. Maybe neither of you were as happy as either of you thought."
> 
> I listened to 70A, and I had SO MANY FEELINGS. I looked for this fanfic, but I couldn't find it, so I had to write it, so it would leave me alone. I'm so sorry.

> _ Carlos: I don’t know. Alisha and Doug look really agitated. They’re jumping up and down by the window. The other giant soldiers are running into formation outside. I need to see what’s wrong. _

 

Carlos stares helplessly, the war cries ringing in his ears, as Doug and Alisha tear through his kitchen, grabbing cutlery and various other kitchen implements. As they flee through the door, his cutting board clattering to the ground, a creeping numbness overcomes him at the state of his kitchen counter.

 

_ “What a nice place you have, Carlos!” Kevin cooed, running his hands over the countertops. “A little… dry, for my taste, but I think it really suits you.” _

_ Carlos offered him a tired smile. “I arranged it to look like my kitchen at home. My findings show the similarity makes me feel a little less homesick.” Kevin’s smile turned sly, and Carlos felt a chill ripple down his spine at the uncanny familiarity of the radio host’s features. _

 

> _ Carlos: Doug and Alisha are back. _

 

Carlos is writing in one of his notebooks as his computer compiles its data, punctiliously checking for inconsistencies in his equations. Excitement crackles through his scientific objectivity like static, and he sets the notebook down, open, on his desk, so he can compare the graphs he’s sketched with the results from a different experiment.

All of this is just idle quadruple checking, however. Something to do with his hands while the computer works. Something to keep him from staring at the screen in anticipation of the results that will validate the impossible, torturous amount of time he’s spent away from home, away from  _ Cecil _ . The thought of Cecil swoops through him like a cold wind, and he fights down the nausea, the guilt, the unreasonable bitterness and resentment. He feels the touch of a radio host’s careful fingers ghost-like on his skin, and he grits his teeth, shoving away the intrusive, unwelcome thoughts.

The door bursts open with a violent bang, and Carlos nearly jumps out of his skin, dropping his pencil as Doug and Alisha limp over the threshold, supporting the massive bodies of their comrades. “Are you… okay?” But the question dies off just as it leaves his lips as more warriors begin to flood in, shedding weapons and armour and-- is that a severed leg? The edges of his vision lighten to white, and he worries momentarily that he will pass out. He takes deep breaths, shifting from foot to foot, until he can focus on the army now ransacking his house.

Trying not to let the irritation show, he marches through the crowd, assessing injuries and directing the warriors (unsuccessfully) to try not to bleed on the furniture. By the time he checks in on mostly everyone, he is back at his desk. Beakers lay shattered on the floor, and blood is soaking into his composition notebooks. His gaze snaps to the computer, which is stained and now sitting askew, but unharmed. Still running. He lets out a breath and braces his palms against the sticky wood, shutting his eyes tight.

 

_ “Does Cecil often help you do science?” Kevin asked, his voice soft.  _

_ “Yeah,” Carlos replied, startling himself at the thickness of his own voice. “Yes. He helps—helped—a lot.” He stared at Kevin’s smiling mouth, unable to drag his gaze any higher, and the loneliness clenched his insides with vice-like tightness. Kevin’s face looked so much like Cecil’s. His hair, his ears, his nose, his jaw. His lips. His smile grew wider, as if he could sense what Carlos was thinking, was suddenly imagining, and a horrified flush rose to the scientist’s cheeks as  _ he _ realised what he was thinking.  _

_ “You miss him. Cecil. Don’t you?” _

_ Carlos swallowed. “Yes, I do.” _

 

> _ Kevin: While Carlos tries to get his notes un-bloodied, let’s have a closer look at the weather. _

 

Briskly, methodically, Carlos cleans. He wears thick gloves that protect him up to his elbows and lab goggles over his eyes because he can’t stand the feeling of so much blood on his skin, and he carefully collects the shattered, blood-soaked glass on the floor into a small box, marked with blue dots.

 

_ The blood roared in his ears at the warm touch on his wrist. Normally, he’d recoil from an unfamiliar touch, but this didn’t feel like that. It lacked any unfamiliarity at all. He looked down at the tattoos crawling down the hand that had settled over his own, and his heart stuttered in his chest, the loneliness in his head screaming so loud that it drowned out rational thought.  _

_ “I’m lonely here, too,” Kevin said quietly, with a sincerity in his voice that Carlos had never heard before. “If you’d like, I think we would both be happier if we were lonely together.”  _

_ Impulsively, Carlos turned his hand over so that their palms touched, and he laced their fingers together. “I think I’d like that,” he whispered.  _

 

He scrubs every surface, a numb rage swirling in his chest, permeating the air in his lungs, until even the slightest of red tints are gone, quite a feat considering the sunlight in this desert otherworld is always just a little bit red. His gaze flickers to the spatter of blood on his computer’s keyboard, then to the damp rag in his hand, and he decides the risk is not worth it. He just has to deal with it until the computer is done processing. ‘I can do that,’ he thinks. ‘Scientists are excellent at waiting.’ His heart clenches at the thought.

 

_ Carlos woke to the faint sounds of battle cries and the syncopatic echoes of marching footsteps, momentarily displaced in his tired brain. He pressed himself closer to the comforting warmth of the man beside him, but a choking feeling rose in his throat, jarring him fully awake. Opening his eyes, he felt a bittersweet ache ripple through him, and he got up to get a cup of water, and perhaps to do science, because when he did science, he didn’t have to worry about the cold shadow buzzing at the back of his mind. _

 

The notebooks are unsalvageable, but he carefully arranges them outside to dry, just in case. It’s not that big a deal, he tells himself. Everything vital is already on the computer. Everything is still fine. He returns to the lab and stares at the screen, the numbers reassuring as they scrolled quickly up the screen.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, Carlos sits down in the freshly cleaned chair at his desk, only to jump up again as he hears the door slam open with a crash. “Are you kidding me?” he exclaims plaintively as a huge whirlwind of white fur explodes into the lab, sending the remaining unbroken instruments crashing to the ground. “Bad dog!” he shouts, attempting to corral Alisha’s massive canine companion. “Outside! Outside now!” The dog skids across the smooth floor, crashing into the desk before scampering towards Carlos. “NO,” he barks, right before the dog’s front paws leave the ground in an undeniable attempt to jump up on his bloodied labcoat. The command seems to work, as the dog hesitates, paws flailing in the air in front of Carlos’s shoulders, and then it’s back on all fours, whirling around in a circle, chasing its tail.

“OUTSIDE,” Carlos orders in his most thunderous voice, and the dog whines mournfully before taking off, full speed, out of the lab. Hands shaking uncontrollably, Carlos looked around at the destruction, seeing the shattered test tubes and spilled chemicals as a cold hollowness creeps into his body. Feebly, he makes his way back to his desk, and he stares at the computer laying on the floor, its monitor shattered and smoking, snapped nearly in half, singe marks dark on the keyboard. He stares at it, his mind utterly silent. He stands there for a long, long moment, gazing down at the ruin of everything he’s worked for, every excuse he’s constructed, every second spent not in Night Vale, where he suddenly, achingly realizes he belongs.

Carlos abruptly turns away and walks to a filing cabinet, opening a drawer and pulling out a blank sheet of paper. He grabs a pen from the floor and begins to write.


End file.
